I met quite a few religious headbangers when I was in Gaza. I think I have a rough idea of how far you can go with them i.e. not very far. Even quite innocuous things in English textbooks used to set them off.

One morning my employer gave me a list of videos they had ordered from the UK, and asked me to check if anything in there would be unsuitable for Islamic countries. It was lucky I did check, as it turned out: one of the films was Life is Sweet, in which Jane Horrocks has chocolate spread licked from her quivering tits. With Palestinian audiences this would have gone down like a rat sandwich. Someone would have taken it home, father would have said, "Where did you get this pornography?" and next day our offices get burnt down by an angry horde. "Rape, murder, it’s just a kiss away," to quote the poet Mick Jagger.

So I only recommended nice films like Chariots of Fire, and Laurence of Arabia. After a while the power went to my head a bit, and I suppressed two films by the National Trust: Classic Cornwall and Classic Devon. I put a line through them and wrote "FILTH!" in the margin. Next to Richard Attenborough's Ghandi I put, "Not suitable. Subversive." I also banned Absolutely Fabulous because to me it is very far from hilarious.

Not long after, someone threw a bomb into our garden. But that was over an unrelated matter.

I'm surprised they liked 'Lawrence'. Wasn't he one of the blokes who helped to get the Palestinians into the mess they're in? Perhaps they just wanted to know what he looked like so they wouldn't miss an opportunity to get him if it arrived.

Anyway, I take it that 'Life is Sweet' must be available on DVD? I'll check.